


How to Pray to God

by NaturalEvil



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe, Demon Deals, Gift Fic, Illustration, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22705141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaturalEvil/pseuds/NaturalEvil
Summary: A demons love is impossible to define, as precious and fickle as it is.A love between brothers is even more indecipherable.It is a honey pot that houses a hornet’s nest.A weapon that wounds the enemy as well as the warrior that wields it.So what is one to do, when only half of the one you love comes back?
Relationships: Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Dante/V (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	How to Pray to God

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MechanicalMermaids](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MechanicalMermaids/gifts).



> A gift for my Valentine, MechanicalMermaids!

It was a miracle.

Or it would be, if Dante believed in god.

Though it definitely was strange, like something out of a fairy tale; or perhaps more fittingly, a horror story.

His brother, his dearest brother, had finally come back to him; present in flesh and blood and bone.

Well, _half_ of him anyway.

The smaller half, the weaker half, the human half.

“You can call me V,” the young man said in a voice that was far too deep for his anemic figure. It was flawless in tone and form, indescribably smooth; lacking the icicle-edge that Dante remembered with a rose-colored-glasses sort of fondness.

What had caused this? Dante wondered, was this a fugue or yet another tragedy in the making?

Please no.

(If there is a god, please tell him to leave me the fuck alone)

In spite of his views, swaying from joy to anger to a bone-tingling bewilderment; Dante promised himself that this meeting would not begin with a brawl and end in a loss.

His time with V would be civil and slow.

The third time’s the charm, as they say.

* * *

Dante stole a book from the library, the smell of a stale atmosphere imprisoned within its yellowing pages. A tiny mark of ownership is written in dark blue ink at the bottom of the very last page, a single shaky lettering, which simply reads ‘V’.

“I guess old habits die hard, huh?” Dante said as he stared at it, a part of him laughing in a fond reminiscence.

V smiles in spite of himself, and the ruthless neon light of Devil May Cry makes him look unholy.

V haunts the inside of the office as if he had always been there. Gliding his long pianist fingers across the stained wallpaper. Repetitiously clicking his tongue, mocking the silence of the broken clock in the hallway.

It reminded Dante of a game that they played as children. Blindfolded, they would try to find each other by clicking their tongues or whistling like caged birds, and doing nothing else. Carefully traversing the house, a familiar territory turned alien and unknown. Though always, without fail, they would make their way towards each other, blind but knowing, always grabbing each others hands first, fingers curling across knuckles like dying grapevines.

* * *

“Do you remember her at all?”

Nero’s mother, Dante meant. Early in the morning he asked that question, so early that the sun had yet to wake up.

V shook his head, his hair unsure of what it wanted to be in the dull kitchen light. Blurring from abalone to pearl and back again, just as her face blurred in his memory.

Eyeless, lipless, voiceless.

“No, I don’t remember her face…” V thought, and thought some more, licking his lips; trying to taste any faint recollection of her skin. “Or her name.”

Her body; something that Vergil had explored on his own, with a passionless and clinical detachment, is a mystery.

He had pierced her, inseminated her, and then left her weeping on her mother’s bed.

Dante nodded and drank his coffee. He was relieved, tired and sighing.

“She wore red,” V said.

That made Dante smile.

* * *

Days later, Dante confessed that when he was alone, sometimes the memories, the longing, the hair-pulling _need_ to see his brother again would get too much.

He would drink enough to hear the walls talk of all they've witnessed and the stars ring like two-pronged forks. He would turn the lights off and stand in the bathroom, shaking.

He would push his hair back and kiss his cold reflection; his breath fogging where his lips met the glass.

“I’d pretend that things had turned out differently...” he admitted, and did not even try to smile.

V only listened, Dante’s old shirts hanging as loose as a curtain around his torso. 

"Sometimes I tried to pray," that sounded so absurd.

So desperate.

So sad. 

Dante was certain that whatever god he prayed to did not exist until the moment he clasped his hands together. 

"How does one pray to god?" V asked, his white hair in his eyes.

(Just like Vergil on a real bad day)

Dante leaned back and stroked his chin as if he were in thought. 

Scoffing, he only shook his head.

"You don't."

* * *

V’s mouth felt like a hole in the wall of his skin.

Crumbling; as if it had been born from an angry fist.

The palm of Dante’s hand tasted of salt and ergot.

Green eyes move upwards, hidden behind stark white lashes.

A preternatural sensation had overcome the both of them.

Washed over them, like waves of water or sacrificial blood.

This was not at all like brushing ones lips against a cold mirror, Dante thinks. 

There was warmth.

There was movement and life.

"You're alive," Dante says finally. His mouth and hands leave bruises as dark as sugared plums. 

V's lips look plump and wet from being bitten. 

If there was blood he would have licked it up. 

If their mother was here, she would have been weeping.

If Vergil's other half was here, he would have slaughtered them both. 

* * *

A thin red line was collared around his neck, like his throat had been slit all the way around, a neat little beheading that was far too pretty to have been done by a guillotine.

There were other markings, just as immaculate.

Ringed around his wrists, ankles, and throat.

Like shackles and a collar.

Or bracelets and a necklace.

(It depends on who is asked)

An unspoken oath. A treaty of service and protection.

But who was bound to who?

“I’m not losing you again,” Dante said when it was done. Out of breath and sweating, he looked like he had been through hell.

“But sometimes I wish you’d stop coming back,”

**Author's Note:**

> Illustration done by the highly-gifted, IrezumiBlue


End file.
